I was lucky.
You see, I’m an electrician by trade, and a good one; I know my job as well as anyone, so they needed me.
I didn’t do so badly.”
“How long was your sentence?” asked Lydia.
“Only eight years.”
“And what did you do?”
He slightly shrugged his shoulders and gave Lydia a deprecating smile.
“Folly of youth.
One’s young, one gets into bad company, one drinks too much and then one day something happens and one has to pay for it all one’s life.
I was twenty-four when I went out and I’m forty now.
I’ve spent my best years in that hell.”
“He could have got away before,” said the other, “but he wouldn’t.”
“You mean you could have escaped?” said Lydia.
Charley gave her a quick, searching glance but her face told him nothing.
“Escape?
No, that’s a mug’s game.
One can always escape, but there are few who get away.
Where can you go?
Into the bush?
Fever, wild animals, starvation, and the natives who’ll take you for the sake of the reward.
A good many try it.
You see, they get so fed up with the monotony, the food, the orders, the sight of all the rest of the prisoners, they think anything’s better, but they can’t stick it out; if they don’t die of illness or starvation, they’re captured or give themselves up; and then it’s two years’ solitary confinement, or more, and you have to be a hefty chap if that doesn’t break you.
It was easier in the old days when the Dutch were building their railway, you could get across the river and they’d put you to work on it, but now they’ve finished the railway and they don’t want labour any more.
They catch you and send you back.
But even that had its risks.
There was a customs official who used to promise to take you over the river for a certain sum, he had a regular tariff, you’d arrange to meet him at a place in the jungle at night, and when you kept the appointment he just shot you dead and emptied your pockets.
They say he did away with more than thirty fellows before he was caught.
Some of them get away by sea.
Half a dozen club together and get a libere to buy a rickety boat for them.
It’s a hard journey, without a compass or anything, and one never knows when a storm will spring up; it’s more by luck than good management if they get anywhere.
And where can they go?
They won’t have them in Venezuela any longer and if they land there they’re just put in prison and sent back.
If they land in Trinidad the authorities keep them for a week, stock them up with provisions, even give them a boat if theirs isn’t seaworthy, and then send them off, out into the sea with no place to go to.
No, it’s silly to try to escape.”
“But men do,” said Lydia.
“There was that doctor, what was his name?
They say he’s practising somewhere in South America and doing well.”
“Yes, if you’ve got money you can get away sometimes, not if you’re on the islands, but if you’re at Cayenne or St. Laurent.
You can get the skipper of a Brazilian schooner to pick you up at sea, and if he’s honest he’ll land you somewhere down the coast and you’re pretty safe.
If he isn’t, he takes your money and chucks you overboard.
But he’ll want twelve thousand francs now, and that means double because the libere who gets the money in for you takes half as his commission.
And then you can’t land in Brazil without a penny in your pocket.
You’ve got to have at least thirty thousand francs, and who’s got that?”
Lydia asked a question and once more Charley gave her an inquiring look.
“But how can you be sure that the libere will hand over the money that’s sent him?” she said.
“You can’t.
Sometimes he doesn’t, but then he ends with a knife in his back, and he knows very well the authorities aren’t going to bother very much if a damned libere is found dead one morning.”
“Your friend said just now you could have got away sooner, but didn’t.
What did he mean by that?”
The little man gave his shoulders a deprecating shrug.